Mnemosyne Production – 2012 – Norway
This is now the fourth solo album of Ihsahn. It seems like he is getting more and more progressive with every new album. Personally, I am not a big fan of his solo albums, but I must admit that he does a great work on them and also that I like very much the first one. He got a bit too much progressive with his third album, but this one tops it on every level. Now you have on his new album a lot of different new elements and more saxophone than on the previous one. Some of the songs here are quit well and I must say that I like them, but some others are a bit too much for me. For instance, Ihsahn gives on this album maybe a bit too much space to the saxophone which is not my favorite instrument. The song “The Eagle and the Snake” is a perfect example for this. But there are also some very good things here on this album and Ihsahn surely proofed with this album that he evolved as a musician on both levels, as a composer and performer. Another very good thing here on this album, and a perfect example for the previous sentence, are his vocals. He uses this time a lot his clean vocals in many different ways, in one song; he was even able to stand shoulder by shoulder with such a great singer like Mike Pathon from Faith No More. Everyone who has heard Faith No More knows that Mike is a very talented singer with a great voice and Ihsahn showed to us that he is more than the normal Black Metal singer and that he also can do better than what we have heard so far from him in the past through Emperor, Peccatum, Hardingrock and also on his previous solo albums. “Recollection” is the name of this song. The certain Faith No More touch is also hearable in the music a not only in his vocals here. All in all, this is a good album and I will certainty give it another try, even with all this elements that I don’t like.
7,5/10
